"Kar chale ham fida jan-o-tan saathiyo
Ab tumhare hawale watan saathiyon..."
--Kaifi Azmi
Utsav
Virkar stood in the men's room of his office,
choking on his tears. If 3.4, the band of Indian
Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L), had
sung this, only Machaan could have done the honours,
Utsav thought. "Dey, Machha! Big
job you have left for us, da!" he
sobbed. "We don't have your grit, da!"
Machaan, Manju, Machha... his dear batchmate had
been silenced forever by a mindless system, but
he had passed on the baton to his contemporaries.
Returning to his desk, Utsav found life going on smoothly. Rohan here was calling distributors, using his usual swear words; Sumant was telling admin in his flat tones that yet again there was no paper in the printer. Anahita was telling the pantry: "Baba re, chai bhejo..." Nothing had changed; the need for paper and tea and sales continued.
"Utsav, are you alright?" asked Anahita. His voice cracked as he said: "I don't know, but it seems a batchmate of mine, Manjunath, was killed in UP." And Utsav broke down again.
Rohan, a few feet away, continued to type his sales report. Eyes glued to his monitor, he asked: "How was he killed?" Someone said, "This is life," and added more sugar to his tea.
Utsav left the room. Alone in the lawn, he recalled Machaan. It seemed like yesterday. Utsav was driving to Bangalore. RAMpack had called him on his mobile: "Hey Mirchi, Machaan is in the neighbourhood, man! Detour maar and come to my guest house." There, they thumped him on the back, hugged him, pushed him around - all excited to see an old pal again. This was Manjunath Shanmugham, abbreviated over time to Machaan by the Tamilian lobby at IIM-L and then naturally to 'Deyy Maccha!'
The usual questioning followed: where are you, which company, are you enjoying? Machaan had said in his characteristic jovial way: "UP mein teil bech raha hoon!" Utsav had cackled: "Arre Madrasi, tu aur UP mein?" Machaan laughed good-naturedly: "Perfect challenge for a South Indian, what?"
But he was happy. He enjoyed his stint, his organisation, the work. Everything he talked about was in superlatives. But that was Machaan. Utsav had said: "Yaar Machaan, anybody else in your place would have cribbed, oil company and sales! And B-schoolers are renowned for cribbing about even the best job. And you? You are rare, da!"
Machaan was rare. Utsav recalled those first few months at IIM-L. For many, it was the first time away from home. For all of them, it was a big thing that they were in IIM. Managing parental expectations and their own was a tight-rope walk. So they either studied too much or too little and at the wrong times, each one saying he had 'cracked it'. But none really came to grips with the monster called IIM exams.
Then came the day before the first semester exams. They were all in the mess eating a late lunch. Stressed out, many had been up all night; almost all of them were unwashed, unbathed. Stress gave way to singing and before long they were singing in soprano, out of tune and hysterically. The mess staff brought in old ghee tins for the boys to use as drums. Machaan had led them in the singing - vibrant, racy and enthusiastic.
Four hours later when they left the mess, almost all of them had a sore throat, but gone was the stress, the anxiety, the nervousness. This became a pattern, semester after semester: Machaan led the singing session (and what a singer!) at the mess, ghee tins and all, 'for junta to de-stress'.
That was Machaan, who was known for the 3.4 band and his cherished personal values. The band got its name from an inane fact: IIM-L was 3.4 km away from the main Lucknow-Sitapur Highway. Ironically, this was the same township where Manjunath would lose his life. Utsav felt his eyes sting with fresh hot tears. The joy and abandon with which they sang... Those were the days - young, innocent, trusting and happy to have chosen a hard but decent life. How innocent they had been. How trusting and determined. After the teen years spent in rebellion and exploration, getting rapped on the knuckles by teachers and parents, admonished for being wayward and irresponsible - why some were even taken to swamis and gurus for counsel. But all that passed as they grew out of rebellion to a life of commitment, trusting....
The call for Namaaz from the nearby masjid wafted through the air. Between yesterday's prayer and today's, Machaan had gone.... Nothing had changed - India, with its billion-plus population, took deaths in its stride.
Then the emails started pouring in. Did you hear? How terrible! What a guy! What is our country coming to? Some blamed oil companies, some blamed all companies, some blamed the system, some blamed the law, some blamed the leadership, some blamed the media. They all blamed someone or the other. Utsav read them all. He did not reply to any. Mercifully, his sister called. Could he sit the night in hospital to watch over grandpa? She could not; her son had taken ill. Utsav was relieved. An evening spent in the suffocating assumed normalcy of life would have been unbearable.
Grandpa was in fact a relief. Through myopic eyes, he looked at Utsav who sat by his side holding the near transparent hand, watching the veins throb. Grandpa smiled his toothless smile and said: "Bol re bala. What's on your mind?"
Utsav said: "Aajoba, many people die. Many
good people die. I understand that. But why are
some good people killed?" Grandpa shut his
eyes briefly and said: "Parithranaya sadhunaam,
vinashaaya cha dushkritaam, dharma sansthapanaarthaya,
sambhavami yuge yuge! Thus spoke the Lord, bala.
When dharma is displaced and the Lord cannot bear
it, He takes birth to put dharma in place. This
is kaliyug - an era of depravity and adharma.
So much is man dulled by material gain that he
won't recognise God even if He stood before him.
Maybe, He takes lives away to stoke mankind to
wake up to dharma sansthapana... Who put Jesus
on the cross? Did Jesus die in vain? Whether we
wake up to that call or sit back and count our
dollars is to be seen."
The next
day, one newspaper announced the incident on its
front page. Lead media was still pondering. But
reactions fired.... Far away in Chennai, Raja,
a young school teacher waved the newspaper in
front of his Principal who was examining a poster
that said: 'In 2020, India will be the centre
of world attention.'
"And who will be running India in 2020, Sir?" asked Raja. "The students we have here will be running the country! Are we equipping them for that? Read what we are doing to dedication... what message is this crime sending to them? Will our students be able to support the economy? I am not sure, sir, I am not... It's their world that is being messed up! Is 2+2 enough? Is history and geography and physics enough?"
The principal said: "Raja, we also learnt just all that, didn't we? Is our country any the worse today?" Raja clucked: "You miss the point, Sir! Then was then; today is different. Today, we have a valueless society. Today, people are taking false pride over an India they imagine! Let me tell you, sir. The India that we take pride in today is not a function of today or yesterday's leadership. It's the hard work of the 1960s and '70s! A seed does not grow like that," said Raja and clicked his fingers to emphasise. "It was sown many years ago! What seed are we sowing today? '2020 India will be great!' How can they say that when all we have to give our children today is the rot we see on TV and crime like this! Progress does not happen by forecasting techniques, Sir! The mind has to evolve too, and such a mind cannot evolve through higher incomes. We need to teach them about how to set a standard in life."
The principal was surprised: "But Raja, what has that got to do with running businesses?"
"That's what they need for running businesses, Sir. A values standard. Businesses are about people, and people are only about attitudes and values. Nothing else! Take both away and what is left? Only a body! We need to build inner wealth in our students. They can tell a Honda City from an Accord. But can they tell right from wrong? And one student today was telling me, 'I want to become the richest man in the world...' Shouldn't we teach them more about their real wealth?"
Elsewhere in Kolkata, Shibani Basu shuddered. Calling her son, she said: "Partho, you must reject that job offer in Chandigarh. Look for something here. Kolkata is safe; all our people... and no one understands us better than our own.... We don't want money, we want safety!"
That evening, Sujoy Basu, an HR man, told Partho: "Life isn't what it used to be, son. What to do?! I would like to fit you with wings, and let you soar like my father did to me. But times have changed.... This country has become like that." Then, looking out the window, he said wistfully: "There was a time when we sent our young management trainees to rural towns as part of their training. All we told them was 'Don't drink tap water, don't eat roadside food.' Today, even keeping them in the city seems dreadful. What caveats do I give them?"
Meanwhile, in a B-school in Karnataka, Prof. Dhiren Vyas stood before his class of first-year students. He was teaching 'Business Ethics and Society', when he was interrupted. "What ethics, 'prof'?" asked one student. "What do ethics do for one? If I must die, I'd rather join the army and die respectfully!" Prof. Vyas replied: "None of today's wars is for ideals or principles or ethics. Ethical wars are being fought in the open, in the marketplace; we are the consumers of ethics. I want you to be ethical towards me just as you want me to be ethical towards you. You don't need to be in the army. Life is the biggest battlefield; the world of business and commerce is the only way for intellectuals to put their ideals to test. Ideals have to be lived."
Back in his room, Prof. Vyas's colleague said:
"How are we to know what to do in situations
like this? We are teachers; we deal with texts
and students. We don't encounter these issues
in our world." Vyas replied: "We don't
need words. We need conviction and determination
to keep our students on the path of right."
Next>>
Related links
Analysis 1: Achal Bhagat
Analysis 2: Subhabrata Ghosh
|
